When Your Character Talks Back

Baby turtle corpses were scattered all around Tria.

… What on earth happened?—I thought, while collecting items into storage. She'd also reached Lv 20. Wow, amazing. Plenty of SP too. Could even buy a gun now, not that I'm going to though. She's been developing as a martial artist.

The speed at which she killed Baby Turtles had dramatically increased. I tried switching back to auto-mode and having her kill just one Baby Turtle.

Tria immediately found a stray Baby Turtle and approached without hesitation.

"… round and round… round and round…!"

Tria was rotating her arm from the elbow down in front of the Baby Turtle. Like a warm-up before punching, but could this be… a charged attack?

Just as I thought that, she kicked the Baby Turtle while still rotating her arm. CLANG CLANG — the sound was nothing like flesh hitting flesh, and the kicked Baby Turtle stuck its head out.

"Punch!!"

Without any counter-timing, Tria's fist pierced through.

Not struck. Pierced. Right through its head with a squelch. This wasn't a fixed attack motion with a game-style damage animation — it had actually pierced.

She pulled her hand out with a wet pop, then shook it to fling off the turtle's fluids. Turtle blood splattered across the ground, recreating one instance of the earlier scene.

… Yeah. She can one-shot Baby Turtles now…!

No wonder hunting efficiency skyrocketed. Auto-mode being more efficient than player control? Wild.

Though maybe the game's difficulty assumes that?

Baby turtles could now be one-shot, and experience efficiency exploded.

But the joy was short-lived. A problem soon emerged. Baby turtle encounters dropped drastically. Or rather, there were no encounters at all anymore.

All that remained were the ones serving as the Great Turtle's entourage. And even those seemed fewer somehow.

… Apparently Baby Turtles don't respawn quickly.

That said, there were no other monsters around the starting area of this mountain besides the turtles.

Probably because it's the Great Turtle's territory, so other monsters don't come near — or have been eaten. Something like that setting-wise.

This must be the developers' intent. Stop grinding and finish the tutorial already.

… Wait? Hold on. Come to think of it, wasn't the tutorial "Defeat the Baby Turtle"? … Oh. It was marked complete. I got 10 SP as a reward.

No next tutorial? Apparently not. How unhelpful. I wonder how others are doing — I'd like to check the wiki…

So should I finally go fight the Great Turtle…? I thought, but then remembered the wiki and held back.

This game has chaotic balancing with plenty of unreasonable deaths, and dying means losing your character plus 12 hours without being able to play.

I want to play it extra safe. With that in mind, challenging the Great Turtle with my current combat power should be avoided.

What a calm and accurate judgment by me. Gold star.

"… Yeah, let's leave the Great Turtle for now. Being able to beat Baby Turtles means I've gotten pretty strong, so let's aim for the Adventurers' Guild!"

My coworker's route didn't have a boss anyway, he said. At most, he beat up some bandits, which probably corresponds to Baby Turtles for me. So grinding here is probably sufficient for now.

Challenging the Great Turtle is likely a trap. There's a possibility it's weaker than it looks, but…

"Alright! Let's head down the mountain. First, find civilization, then the guild… Did I forget to check anything?"

I searched around the starting point, like where the mossy wooden box had been.

Moving the four rocks that had crushed her limbs revealed rotting, crushed limbs. Probably Tria-chan's… Hmm, unrepairable! Not that she needs them with new limbs anyway. But it seems obtainable as an item, so I'll grab it.

Still have plenty of storage space, and you never know what might be needed.

Just then, a speech bubble with an "!" icon appeared on screen. It was blinking, so I tapped it wondering what it was.

"Spirit-sama. If I may be so bold, are you looking for a town?"

"Whoa!? A chat function with the character. It's not just during auto-mode?"

"Chat function with the character?"

A message smoothly updated in response to my own words.

"Oh, wait, is this voice recognition?"

"Um, yes, I can hear Spirit-sama's voice."

"Seriously～"

Uh, did I grant microphone permissions during installation… Don't remember. Probably did.

So this game uses the mic too… That helps since manual typing is tedious.

I'd been voice-typing while also manually entering text. Talk about double effort.

"Um. Tria-chan?"

"Yes, I'm Tria. What is it, Spirit-sama?"

Smooth response to voice. Modern AI really is impressive.

I'll use voice input from now on.

"Do you know how to get to the nearest town?"

"I don't know from here, but if we return to the village first, I would know. The village is probably down the mountain."

"So you pretty much do know then? Alright, switching to auto-mode, take care of it."

"Understood."

Switching to auto-mode, Tria began descending the mountain path.

Yeah. Apparently I can leave it to the character and it'll work out automatically. Not fast travel, but subtly convenient.

But I didn't expect the character to offer suggestions like that… Well, she did ask earlier if she could try different attacks during auto-mode. Truly, the era belongs to idle games that accommodate busy modern people.

Then, glancing at the minimap, I noticed a red dot indicating an enemy approaching.

Thinking it might be a remaining Baby Turtle, I moved the camera.

Nope.

It's the Great Turtle. And it looks really angry.

It was crashing through, toppling trees as it charged. At considerable speed.

"A forced boss battle?! No way, I can't win yet! Tria-chan, run!!"

"Understood. Tria will run."

Since she was in auto-mode, on-screen Tria moved her mouth to answer.